by W. C. Conner
Scrubby chattered happily away with Little Wil and Mattie hanging on his every word.
“… and Caron has this giant key that’s actually a part of Big Wil – it’s really his left arm – and it’s warm and that’s how he’s going to work with Caron to kill this demon. Oh, and Caron found out from Wil that she’s a witch, and when she came out of the Old Forest…”
Tingle had mounted into the driver’s box by this time. With a twitch of the reins, Lily started forward, seeming pleased to be moving away once again from the madness that pushed at all of them from behind.
Eldred looked up from the remains of the four mutilated lambs in their pen. The three ewes stood facing him, chewing contentedly on the grass in the manger at the side of the pen, their faces covered with the blood of their offspring. “This is the tenth one I’ve seen in the past three days,” he said. At a crashing noise from farther down in the barn, he straightened up and started moving toward it as the noise sounded again and then again.
“It’s the ram, Eldred,” Brother Sylvester told him. “He started this when all the animals suddenly went berserk, but he hasn’t stopped like the others did. He batters himself against the door time after time until he falls senseless. He broke off one of his horns early on but continues to batter himself against the door. His head’s a bloody mess, but there seems nothing I can do to stop it.”
“I’d butcher him before he ruins the meat,” Eldred observed dryly as he looked into the pen where the ram was gathering himself for another charge at the door.
As he left the barn, Sylvester was walking toward the ram’s pen with a length of rope in one hand and a knife in the other. He shrugged his shoulders at Eldred as they passed one another. “Yours is the only idea that’s made any sense,” he said.
Eldred could hear the ram bleating angrily as Sylvester hoisted him into the air by his back legs in preparation for the slaughter. The bleating stopped suddenly and Eldred shivered at the death that seemed so senseless.
When he arrived back at the meeting hall, Eldred found two of the brothers speaking quietly to one another on the front porch. They broke off their conversation as Eldred stepped onto the porch and they walked over to meet him.
“Angela is inside, Eldred,” the older of the two said, nodding toward the front door. “She says Albrecht went crazy and attacked her in the stable yard at the inn.”
“Is she hurt, Brother Finn?” Eldred asked.
Finn nodded grimly. “Bartholomew is with her,” he replied. “I think you should judge how she is for yourself.” Bowing, the two wizards left the porch and headed back to their chores.
Just inside the door, Eldred found the newly revealed young wizard, Allen, sitting quietly on a bench in the shadows, his knees drawn up under his chin, a haunted look in his eyes.
“Are you all right, Allen?” Eldred asked. Allen shook his head and Eldred could see the glistening of tears in his eyes.
“I brought her here for Bartholomew to fix after I found her bleeding on the road,” the young man said quietly. “She’s hurt really badly. I don’t think she’ll ever be pretty again.”
A look of comprehension crossed Eldred’s face. “You care very much for her, don’t you, Allen?” he said gently.
“I’m in love with her, Eldred,” he replied.
Eldred smiled fondly down at the earnest young man. Angela was easily six to eight years older than Allen, but he certainly understood the infatuation this lad could have for her because she was a lovely and gracious young lady. Eldred would certainly have noticed her two hundred and five years ago when he was but a lad himself. He reached over and gripped Allen’s shoulder as his way of telling the young man he understood. Releasing his grip, he walked over to the door that Allen sat facing and quietly turned the handle.
Bartholomew looked up from where he sat beside the bed as the door swung open. At Eldred’s raised eyebrows, he shook his head and looked back to the pale face asleep on the pillow. The elder wizard could tell that despite Bartholomew’s expert work and healing powers, Angela would never be the pretty girl she was before Albrecht’s attack.
Bartholomew rose and walked toward the side door leading to the garden, indicating to Eldred that he should accompany him. Once outside, he spoke softly. “Her face was mutilated with fingernail scratches and bite marks,” he said. “I have done all that I can to repair the damage, but it was extensive. Part of her nose and one ear were missing, and her left eye had been scratched out.”
“I could tell as soon as I saw her that the damage was beyond that which even your considerable powers could fully repair,” Eldred said. As he finished speaking, there came a loud gasp from Angela’s room as if someone had been hit in the chest and the two wizards turned abruptly to rush back into the room.
At the foot of the bed upon which Angela lay, Allen now lay unconscious. Their feelings of alarm were replaced almost immediately with looks of wonder as their attention moved from Allen to Angela. She was raised up on one elbow, watching them as they rushed through the door, her face entirely healed of all hurt and damage. They looked once again to Allen to find his features damaged in the same way that Angela’s had been, only the wounds were healing themselves quickly, even as they watched.
It was a long moment before either of them spoke. “He is to be one of the great ones,” Bartholomew said at last, the awe clear in his tone.
“Not a Great Wizard, perhaps, but certainly a prodigy of great healing powers,” Eldred replied. “I suspected he had something special hidden within him when he found the cave, and this certainly confirms it.” Looking over at Bartholomew he said, “It looks like you have an apprentice, my friend. Or maybe, more properly, you are once again an apprentice yourself.”
Bartholomew smiled. “I will do everything in my power to guide him, Eldred,” he said. “Never before in my two hundred years have I seen such incredible healing power. He is a wonder, for certain.”
Angela had reached down to the unconscious Allen while they spoke and drawn him to her. Holding him close, she lay back down and drifted into an untroubled sleep as Allen continued in the regenerative wizard’s sleep in which they had found him.
Back at Three Oaks Inn, Albrecht lay dead in the stable yard. The tines of the pitchfork upon which he had thrown himself when he awoke from his living nightmare of attacking Angela protruded from his back. Around him, the chickens pecked at the grain that Angela had been about to scatter for them before Albrecht’s attack.
It had come on him suddenly. He had been on his way from the kitchen to the common room with a tray filled with clean tankards when he looked through the side door into the stable yard and saw Angela lean over to scoop some grain into her upheld apron. Upon seeing her thus, his manhood had arisen immediately to a fully aroused state and he had dropped the tankards as he sprang at her, horror in his eyes at what he knew he was about to do.
After it was over and she staggered, sobbing and bleeding, into the street away from him, he looked for some way – any way – to cleanse himself of the horror he had just committed. Spying the hayfork, he seized it and wedged it in the stable doorway with the tines facing him, then threw himself upon it. Tears flowed down his face as the life fled his body. “Forgive me, Angela. I did not...” he whispered, his plea unfinished as his heart stilled.
All around the little town of Wisdom, men stood or sat in shock at what they had done. Children beaten, wives beaten and ravished, animals killed. The women of Wisdom had escaped into the street, bringing their children with them, and banded together for protection.
Once the period of insanity had ended, the men of the town scattered, each of them alone with their guilt and their horror. The women and children who had been driven into the street stood in shock, not knowing what had happened but knowing that they could not let it happen again by staying where they were. The decision was quickly and jointly made among them that they were going to take their children and leave this place of madness. They would start immedi
ately to travel to the Castle Gleneagle to beg the Prince’s protection from whatever was happening. There was no way for them to know they would never reach Gleneagle; that they would be turned toward Blackstone soon after they passed the turning to Wrensfalls.
The madness that descended on the residents of Wisdom was typical of what was happening everywhere. The herding of victims had reached all parts of the principality.
Sealed by the wizards’ fire in the cave somewhere west of Wisdom, the pulsing clot of darkness felt the call of evil that had driven Albrecht mad and quivered with excitement and rage at the spell of binding which still held it in thrall.
The attack on Angela and the others, and Albrecht’s passionate death afterward had bequeathed more power to Styxis in far off Blackstone and the clot could sense that she would eventually come and take its own power to herself. Its rage mounted at the inevitable usurpation, unaware that the fire that had sealed it in would also seal her out.
25
Eldred and others of the earth wizards’ leadership walked down the street of the little town feeling much as they had when they found Wisdom deserted upon their return from the battle with Greyleige.
“Eldred,” came a call from the stable yard at Three Oaks, “come see.”
Looking down at the body impaled on the hayfork, the head of the Wisdom wizards shook his head. “Albrecht was a good man. He did not deserve that, no matter what he did. Please remove him and have him prepared for a proper burial.”
Eldred was puzzled by this anomaly. Albrecht was a decent, sensible, cautious, gentle person. How or why had he gone berserk and attacked Angela as he had?
Emerging from the side yard of the inn, the little group was met with a disquieting sight. Hollow eyed men were emerging uncertainly from their houses and sheds, their eyes haunted and reddened from weeping, their mouths hanging open with exhaustion. Each of them walked unsteadily over to the wizards and babbled their tale of the violent insanity that had gripped them. All of them had been taken with an irresistible command to commit some sort of mayhem on those they loved. All of them were horrified by what they had done.
As Eldred listened, it dawned on him that their madness had come on them at the same time as that of the animals at the compound, but none of the wizards or their families in the wizards’ community had been affected. It appeared that this madness had afflicted only those with no magical potential. He was on the verge of sharing his observation with the others when his attention was caught by another unusual sight.
Angela and Allen walked together toward them from the direction of the compound. At first glance, it appeared to Eldred that they walked hand in hand as lovers would, but a second glance told him Angela was holding the youth’s hand as if bringing a reluctant child along as, indeed, it turned out that she was. She curtsied slightly to Eldred as they stopped before him, then turned to Allen. “Tell him what you told me, Allen,” she said gently.
“I felt the command that caused Albrecht to attack Angela,” he said quietly. “It was very strong.” He looked to Angela for support and she nodded encouragingly. “He couldn’t help himself, Eldred. Please don’t think badly of him.”
“I don’t, Allen,” Eldred replied, “but he is beyond caring what we think now, anyway. It appears his remorse was such that he killed himself.”
Angela’s eyes told Eldred she was both horrified and relieved to hear that Albrecht was dead, but she said nothing. Allen turned pale at the announcement.
“I think we had best get back to the compound,” Eldred said while turning and starting to walk back in that direction. Behind him, the men of Wisdom milled about in the street seeking to find anybody willing to listen to their tale of the compulsion that had come upon them. Two of the Simple Wizards who were adept at calming troubled minds had remained behind with the unhappy men.
Eldred had walked slightly ahead with Angela when Bartholomew reached out to touch Allen’s arm, compelling him to slow down to match the older wizard’s pace.
“Tell me, Allen,” Bartholomew said as they walked. “How were you able to heal Angela?”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “I was going crazy waiting outside her room and wondering how she was, so I went and opened the door just as you and Eldred left the room. When I saw her lying there, I couldn’t stand to see her hurt so badly. I put my hand on her face and willed it to heal and it did. But when it happened, my face suddenly felt as if it had been ripped apart just as hers had and I guess I passed out.”
Bartholomew listened sympathetically, for he too had always felt an overwhelming compassion for those he treated, but he had never experienced the transference of pain and injury that went with healing as Allen had.
“You have a rare gift for healing,” Bartholomew said. “I have never seen or even heard of anyone healing another as completely and easily as you did Angela.” He was quiet for several moments, lost in thought as they walked.
“I would suggest you join me as my apprentice, Allen, but I believe it would be more accurate to suggest that we should apprentice ourselves to one another. There is much I could teach you to eliminate or, at the least, reduce the empathetic pain you experienced in healing Angela. At the same time, there is much I might learn from you as to how you accomplished the miracle you did.”
The young wizard looked up at Bartholomew. “Did I really do that all by myself?” he asked.
“You did. All by yourself.”
Allen looked forward to where Angela walked beside Eldred. “Did you know that my mother is seven years older than my father?” he asked. Bartholomew smiled, knowing where Allen’s mind was going at that moment. He didn’t answer, knowing also that the young man wasn’t really expecting a reply.
The two Simple Wizards who had counseled with the men of Wisdom following the insanity had rejoined the others in the meeting hall.
“They’re going after their families, Eldred. They’re going to try to make them understand what happened.”
Eldred looked concerned. “My heart tells me that it’s the right thing to do,” he said, “but my wizard’s intuition tells me otherwise.” He shrugged helplessly. “It just feels that those women and children are sheep being herded somewhere and their men are the sheepdogs sent to aim them toward the pen.” He looked up as he came to a decision.
“After what we went through before,” he said, “I never thought anyone would hear me utter these words, but I am going to return to Blackstone.”
The others looked at one another in disbelief until finally a woman’s voice broke the silence.
“My mistress is there,” said Angela. “I should have gone with her when she left here. My duty is with the princess. I will go with you.”
Eldred smiled knowingly as he saw Allen’s hand go up like the schoolboy that he was and he nodded toward him, anticipating what he was going to say.
“You will need a healer,” he said. “I will go with you, also.” Glancing shyly toward Angela, he reddened noticeably and looked quickly to the floor as she smiled at him.
Allen’s father stood up. “I’ll not try to stop my son,” he said, his voice a bit uneven, “he’s proven his mettle already, but that doesn’t mean I’m not concerned for his safety. I’ll go along as his protector.”
“Thank you, Stewart,” Eldred said, a smile of relief on his face. “I would welcome any among you who have special talents you feel would be useful in the uncertain situation we face.” A murmur of voices greeted that announcement before Eldred added, “I propose to leave in two days. Give thought to what has been said. I want no one volunteering who has any misgivings whatsoever about joining us on this journey. I have no presentiment at all of how it will turn out.”
With that, he stood and strode out of the hall to return to his home where his own wife waited for him.
26
It was the morning of the second day following the meeting after their discovery of the horrible events that had befallen all of Wisdom. Eldred stood on the por
ch of the meeting hall looking out over the assemblage of wizards, his traveling pack on his back and hiking stick in his hand. Angela stood beside him in suitable hiking clothes, as did Allen and Stewart, all of whom carried a full pack. Angela had refused to carry any less than the rest of them, though they had each begged her to allow them to carry at least a part of hers.
In addition to the original volunteers, there were five Simple Wizards from the group that had faced Greyleige with Eldred, all of them grim but determined in expression. In all, then, there were nine; the same number that had gone off to the first battle against the encroaching evil of their corrupted leader.
“Nine it will be, then,” Eldred announced as he stepped from the porch. But before the little group could depart, there was a commotion to the side and the crowd parted to reveal two more wizards approaching. In the front Bartholomew strode, a great walking stick in hand. Following behind him, Sylvester led three donkeys with pack frames which were empty save for their two packs and two bags filled with extra foodstuffs.
“I’ll not have my new apprentice leaving me behind,” Bartholomew announced, “and I’ve decided I’m too old to travel that far by foot with a pack on my back, so I’ve talked Sylvester into loaning us a few of his donkeys. However, he’s careful of his animals and mistrustful of others where they’re concerned, so he’s joining us for their sake.”
He smiled broadly as he looked at young Allen who was far too small to carry the enormous pack on his back and Angela who had never had to carry a weight of this size any significant distance in her life. The two smiled sheepishly – but thankfully – back at him as they removed their packs and handed them to Sylvester.
“There are three donkeys here, brothers,” Bartholomew said, laughing. “Don’t be as stubborn as they are. Give your packs to Sylvester.” Amid good natured jesting, the others removed their packs as well and handed them over to be lashed to the pack frames of the sturdy little animals.